Roger Fletcher Gibson, Jr. (February 21, 1944 – September 30, 2015)
was an American philosopher specializing in epistemology and the
philosophy of language. He was best known as a leading exponent of the
philosophy of W. V. Quine.

Contents

1 Biography
2 Selected publications

2.1 Books
2.2 Articles
2.3 Reviews

3 References
4 External links

Biography[edit]
Gibson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Roger Fletcher Gibson, Sr.,
and Virginia Irene Melton. He spent his formative years moving
throughout the country, eventually coming to live with his maternal
grandparents about whom he would later remark were the most
influential people in his life. Gibson joined the
United StatesUnited States Marine
Corps out of high school and volunteered for duty in Vietnam. He
served in Saigon from October 1965 to October 1966. He considered his
military service one of his greatest achievements.
Gibson embarked upon the pursuit of philosophy as an academic career
in 1967 upon the completion of his military service. He was ready to
resume his education that year, having served in the United States
Marine Corps immediately after high school, between 1962 and 1966,
attached for part of that time as aide to General Westmoreland[1]
during the height of the Vietnam War. He enrolled in Northeast
Missouri State College, currently Truman State University, where he
graduated in 1971 with a B.A. in philosophy.
Encouraged by his undergraduate philosophy professors, Henry Smits and
Kay Blair, both holding doctorates from the University of Missouri, he
applied to their graduate program in philosophy and was admitted in
the fall of 1971.[2] He developed a budding affinity for analytic
philosophy while at the University of Missouri, receiving an M.A. in
1973 and a Ph.D. in 1977. His experience there was shaped by Arthur
Berndtson, Donald Oliver, and John Kultgen, among others, the latter
also directing his dissertation.[3]
Gibson served the discipline both as a leader and as a scholar. His
first notable leadership role was as President of the Central States
Philosophical Association in 1983–1984. His scholarly initiatives
attracted attention from the outset, earning him grants from the
National Endowment for the HumanitiesNational Endowment for the Humanities in 1984–1985 [4] and 1988.[5]
His academic career flourished at Washington University in St. Louis,
where he began teaching in 1985. He served as the Chair of the
Department of Philosophy there for a decade between 1989 and 1999. His
many contributions to the department included spearheading the
creation of the school's Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (PNP)
Program in 1993, playing a prominent role in securing grants for that
purpose from the James S. McDonnell Foundation.[6]
Gibson's formal areas of expertise were epistemology and the
philosophy of language, with further competence in the philosophy of
science. While publishing extensively in these areas, his overall
engagement with philosophy was broad and deep enough for publication
in other specialties as well, including those as diverse as logic[7]
and ethics.[8][9] Most of his works, even on the rare occasion he
turned to ethics, tend to revolve around the philosophy of W. V.
Quine.[10] Those that do are all well-received (as are the few that do
not), earning him a reputation as one of the world's leading exponents
of Quine.[11]
That reputation is the culmination of an early and steadfast interest
in Quine. His master's thesis (1973)[12] and doctoral dissertation
(1977)[13] are both on Quine. His persistent appeals to the Harvard
philosopher for permission to sit in on his classes at Harvard
University, while himself still enrolled as a graduate student at the
University of Missouri, are something of an academic legend, related
by Quine himself both in his autobiography, The Time of My Life: An
Autobiography (1985),[14] and in his foreword to Gibson's first book,
The Philosophy of W. V. Quine: An Expository Essay (1982).[15] The
permission granted paved the way for some of the most influential
secondary literature on Quine, including two monographs, three edited
volumes, and numerous articles. Gibson's two monographs — The
Philosophy of W. V. Quine: An Expository Essay (1982)[16] and
Enlightened Empiricism: An Examination of W. V. Quine's Theory of
KnowledgeKnowledge (1988)[17] — are held in especially high regard.
His personal output on Quine was complemented by his ability to bring
out the same in others. Attesting to his dedication to the enrichment
of Quine studies, he organized, together with Robert B. Barrett Jr., a
conference (April 9–13, 1988) bringing together at Washington
University in St. Louis the world's foremost authorities on the
subject, including Quine himself, as well as Donald Davidson, Dagfinn
Føllesdal, Susan Haack, Gilbert Harman, Jaakko Hintikka, Jerrold
Katz, Barry Stroud, and Joseph S. Ullian. The proceedings were
published in 1990 as Perspectives on Quine.[18]
A festschrift organized in his honor in 2008 brought together eminent
analytic philosophers from around the world: Robert B. Barrett Jr.;
Lars Bergström; Richard Creath; David Henderson; Terence Horgan;
Ernest Lepore; Pete Mandik; Alex Orenstein; Kenneth Shockley; J.
Robert Thompson; Josefa Toribio; Joseph S. Ullian; Josh Weisberg;
Chase B. Wrenn.[19]
Roger F. Gibson, Jr., died at the age of 71 in Reston, Virginia, after
a long battle with Parkinson’s and Parkinson’s dementia.
Selected publications[edit]
Books[edit]

Gibson's autobiographical post on the alumni page of the University of
Missouri Philosophy Department
Announcement of Gibson's death by the Department of Philosophy at
Washington University in St. Louis
Memorial Minutes contributed by Mark Rollins to the American
Philosophical Association (behind a paywall)